Former child detainee Joni Nakayama Kimoto inside the former Portland Assembly Center building.
By SHARON YAMATO
As part of an ongoing project to document all 17 so-called “assembly centers” for a brand-new website we are launching early next year, New York photographer Stan Honda and I have been traveling up and down the coast of California to capture what remains at each of these sites.
Last week, Stan and I completed our visits to all 17 sites by visiting two of only three temporary detention centers outside of California. We started at the site oddly known as “Camp Harmony” in Puyallup, Wash., and then made our way down the coast to the Portland Expo Center.
Immediately after Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 forced everyone from their homes, these temporary sites were thrown together in a matter of weeks to hastily imprison Americans of Japanese descent so that the government could begin making plans for the more permanent detention centers throughout the country. Because of their short-lived and transient nature, they were described by many as much worse than the 10 permanent camps.
Most of the assembly center sites have gone back to their original usage as fairgrounds or racetracks, leaving little trace of the interim sites that once housed more than 90,000 people for anywhere from three to six months. These sites could easily be considered a blip on the long WWII historic timeline, but they are particularly meaningful to the history of incarceration in the local areas of California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.
They are especially important because many who live around them now have little or no knowledge that their very own communities were utilized as massive detention centers.
As part of our Pacific Northwest driving tour, we got to see the ongoing construction of the brand new “Remembrance Gallery” at the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup that is memorializing 7,600 detainees held there. Not only does it include a beautifully constructed wall of names, it is remarkable for its innovative high-tech and interactive displays unlike anything being constructed at any of other sites.
The groundbreaking display will hopefully be open to the public with the start of this year’s Washington State Fair on Aug. 31.
As we headed from Puyallup to Portland, we encountered an entirely different assembly center that I would venture to say was the most unique and by far the worst of all 17 sites. Today, Portland Expo is Oregon’s largest multi-purpose facility and includes five enormous exhibit halls and 10 meeting rooms. Driving into the gigantic parking lot with Cirque de Soleil trucks gathered in one tiny corner, we had trouble identifying the exact location of the once populated Portland Assembly Center on this current 53-acre site.
Only two of its present-day buildings date back to 1925, when they were used as a livestock exhibition center, meat processing plant, auction venue, and rodeo under the auspices of the Pacific International Livestock Association.
In 1942, the Wartime Civilian Control Administration decided to use these existing livestock buildings to house more than 3,600 Americans of Japanese ancestry. Once used to house horses and cows, the buildings became human residences with thinly partitioned rooms inundated with lingering flies and foul smells, not to mention extreme heat and overcrowding.
With room dividers only 8 feet high between tight back-to-front rooms and canvas curtains serving as doors, you can only imagine the lack of privacy that plagued this center.
Dirt floors were covered with wooden planks that did nothing to disguise the stench from animal droppings. Joni Nakayama Kimoto, now in her 80s, was only 3? when she first arrived at the assembly center. After being asked to return there in 2017 after 75 years, she didn’t think she had any recollection of her family’s experience.
However, the moment she stepped into the former livestock building, she had an immediate re-lived sensory experience. Even though the floor was now completely cleaned up and covered with concrete, she was taken aback by the “overwhelming smell of animal waste.”
The stench was undoubtedly a cause of the massive fly infestation that plagued the center. According to some reports, the wooden planks and walls were watered down, which invited massive numbers of flies. Flypaper was provided by wartime officials, and many remember how the strips quickly became completely black as they became overloaded with flies.
To make matters worse, Portland Expo temperatures rose to as high as 107 degrees during the May-September months when the center was operating. Because of the heat, classes were closed, and the curfew was extended from 10 to 11:30 p.m. to allow residents to stay outside rather than suffer in their cramped indoor living quarters.
Given the deplorable conditions, it was fascinating to see first-hand the exact living space that our ancestors had to endure inside this large now-hollow exhibit hall. Even seeing the enormous space, it was hard to imagine 3,600 people crammed into these two connected buildings. Standing in the cavernous open-beam structure, I suddenly got a sense of its horror.
Sadly, there is currently only a small marker at the entrance to the building that identifies the Portland Expo as a former assembly center site. A beautifully crafted torii-inspired public art piece created by artist Valerie Otani at the adjacent public transportation station is now gone but hopefully will reappear once restored.
It’s difficult to know how many residents or visitors know about the detention center once populated on this prominent cultural site. Now owned and operated by the Metro regional government that oversees tourist and visitor venues, ongoing efforts at offering educational information regarding this important incarceration site are likely to go on for years.
Hopefully, such institutions as the Portland JACL and the Japanese American Museum of Oregon (JAMO) will aid in preserving this important history.
Because actual buildings still exist at the site (unlike many of the other 16 sites), it is even more important to tell the story of what went on here while visitors can still see, feel and touch the ground where our ancestors were once imprisoned.
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Sharon Yamato writes from Playa del Rey and can be reached at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those ofThe Rafu Shimpo.